"REPLY.-You should examine yourself every night, but simply and
briefly. In the disposition to which God has brought you, you will
not voluntarily commit any considerable fault without remembering and
reproaching yourself for it. As to little faults, scarcely perceived,
even if you sometimes forget them, this need not make you uneasy.
"As to lively grief on account of your sins, it is not necessary. God
gives it when it pleases Him. True and essential conversion of the
heart consists in a full will to sacrifice all to God. What I call
full will is a fixed immovable disposition of the will to resume none
of the voluntary affections which may alter the purity of the love to
God and to abandon itself to all the crosses which it will -perhaps
-be necessary to bear, in order to accomplish the will of God always
and in all things. As to sorrow for sin, when one has it, one ought
to return thanks for it; when one perceives it to be wanting, one
should humble one's self peacefully before God without trying to
excite it by vain efforts.
"You find in your self-examination fewer faults than persons more
advanced and more perfect do; it is because your interior light is
still feeble. It will increase, and the view of your infidelities
will increase in proportion. It suffices, without making yourself
uneasy, to try to be faithful to the degree of light you possess, and
to instruct yourself by reading and meditation.
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